Trash A Fun Family Card Game

Trash is a super easy card game to learn. Once grandkids understand how to play, it provides lots of fun when playing with grandma — or cousins or aunts or uncles!

For 2 players, you’ll need one deck of regular face cards. If you have 3 to 4 players, you need 2 decks. You’ll need 3 decks for 5 or more players.

The goal of the round is to be the first person to place cards face up from numbers 1 (or ace) to 10 in their correct positions.

Select someone to be the dealer. The dealer deals out 10 cards face down to each player. The players do not look at their cards.

They arrange their cards in 2 rows with 5 cards in each row. One row is above the other one.

These face down cards ‘represent’ the numbers 1 through 10 or ace through 10 where the ace represents the number 1.

The remaining cards are placed face down in the middle of the table. This is the draw pile.

The other person takes a card from the top of the draw pile. If it is a jack or a queen, she discards the card because it can’t be used and her turn is over.

Let’s say she draws a card with a number 6 on it. She puts that 6 card in the correct location in the layout where a 6 would go.

The player picks up the card that was face down in the 6 location and looks at it. She can put it in the spot that corresponds to the number on the card if there isn’t a card already face up in that spot.

Play continues until that player gets a card that cannot be played. She discards that card face up next to the pile of draw cards. This is the discard pile.

Let’s say a player draws a king. That is great! Kings are wild and can be used in any location. Wahoo!

If a card is drawn that corresponds to the numerical position where a king is, the player may put the numerical card in its correct location. Then, she can take the king and place it wherever she chooses.

Now it’s the other player’s turn. She can draw either from the discard pile or the draw pile. If it’s a card she can use, she puts it in the correct location. She continues playing until she gets a card that she can’t put in any of the locations.

She discards her card and it’s the other person’s turn.

Play continues until one player has all 10 cards face up in numerical order. She is the winner of that round.

The cards are shuffled and dealt out.

But! Oh boy! This is where things start to get fun.

In this round, the winner is dealt one less card. Which means in the second round she has only 9 cards face down in front of her. Which means she has less cards to put in order. Which means it might be easier for her to win. Yipee!

Continue playing more rounds until one person has one card face down in front of her. When she replaces her one face down card with either an ace or a king, she is the winner of the entire game of Trash!

If both players have only one card, the winner of the entire game is the first person to replace her face card down with an ace or a king.

Got all that? Great! You can download the rules for Trash here so that you could have it on hand as you’re learning the game.

You might also be interested in playing the card games of Ripple or Golf. They are great fun, too.

If you have lots of grandkids together, you can do a play off. Pair them off. At the end of the round, have the winners (those with only 9 cards) play each other.

At the end of that round, have those with only 8 cards play each other. The other kids could play each other. (Does this make sense? if not, let me know!)

Continue playing until there is one winner.